• Holland And Barrett Vitamins Gibraltar Offer

Oct 27 - Enterprise Insurance Chairman Nick Cruz Rejects FSC Statements - Calls For Right To Due Process To Be Respected

Cruz: “I totally reject public statements by the FSC about the insolvency of Enterprise Insurance Plc and call for my natural justice right to due and fair process to be respected by the FSC”.

Nick Cruz, the non-executive Chairman of the insurance firm which is the focus of an extensive investigation by the Financial Services Commission (FSC) has said that the FSC has publicly prejudged the very issues and have condemned the very people that they must investigate.

Mr Cruz says that the financial failure of Enterprise Insurance Plc and the adverse effects that it may have on policyholders and others is “deeply regrettable” as is its adverse effect on Gibraltar’s reputation as a finance centre, even though insurance companies fail in all major financial centres around the world.

The following statement from Mr Cruz was sent to the local press this evening: “As a non-executive director of Enterprise since 2004 (as one of a board of 10 directors) and its non-executive Chairman since October 2014, I totally agree with the FSC that a thorough investigation should be conducted into the reasons for the failure, whether the company has been properly run and whether anyone should be held to account for the collapse of Enterprise. Nothing less would be acceptable and consistent with upholding Gibraltar’s reputation.

“In a press release issued yesterday the FSC has said that it has reason to believe that it may have been significantly and consistently misled about Enterprise’s true financial position for some time and that the company has not been run in a sound and prudent manner by its board of directors. That was followed up by a statement in an interview on GBC television by a very senior FSC official that the FSC had indeed been misled and that all that remained to be determined in the investigation was whether it was due to incompetence or deliberate.

“Gibraltar’s reputation as a finance centre requires the failure of Enterprise to be investigated. Its reputation as a country governed by the rule of law similarly depends on respect by public authorities for the rules of natural justice. These require the FSC to follow due, fair and transparent process, and not, before the investigation even begins, to publicly prejudge the very issues and condemn the very people that they must investigate. The FSC’s understandable desire to get to the bottom of what has happened does not justify their departure from these basic norms of fairness.

“Since the FSC’s comments (as made) about being misled and the company not being properly run by its board apply collectively to all directors, and therefore to me as well, I wish to make it publicly clear that I absolutely and unreservedly reject as false the FSC’s statement that I may have ever (let alone “consistently and for some time”) misled them or been part of a board of directors that has misled them.

“Despite saying that it is at the initial stages of its investigation and that it has therefore not made any findings or reached any conclusions at this stage, the FSC’s statements clearly assume serious wrongdoing by the Company and its directors. It is absurd to say, as the FSC has done, that the insolvency of Enterprise must mean serious wrongdoing by any director, let alone all of them. In any event, natural justice and due process would require such statements to have awaited the outcome and findings of the investigation, and not to precede it. It would also require the directors to have been made aware of the allegations of personal wrongdoing by them and to have been afforded an opportunity to answer those allegations.

“According to the Company’s executive management, the reason that the liquidator’s report necessarily shows a higher deficit than had been envisaged in July has nothing whatever to do with, and does not sustain the FSC’s statement that it has been misled.

“Since 22 July 2016 when the board of directors concluded, and informed the FSC, that the Company was insolvent I have been offering to meet with the FSC to provide them with whatever information or explanations they may require. They have not taken up my offer. I had also previously been involved for the last 18 months or so in frequent and regular meetings with the FSC in relation to the financial position of this company and worked in close liaison with them to try to ensure its survival.

“I am deeply shocked that I find myself in Gibraltar having to publicly defend my reputation against such statements by the FSC before being given details of what I am supposed to have done wrong and an opportunity to answer. I call on the FSC to comply with their legal obligation to respect my human and legal rights to natural justice and due and fair process before it publicly prejudices my personal and professional reputation.”


{fcomment}